


Truth Is Rarely Pure, And Never Simple

by shewhoguards



Category: The Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 06:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5486462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewhoguards/pseuds/shewhoguards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deception is built one lie at a time, and difficult to undo. Takes place during Lives of Christopher Chant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truth Is Rarely Pure, And Never Simple

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iphianassa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iphianassa/gifts).



“I can’t stay here anymore,” said Mordecai. Flavian’s face said he thought he understood and for a moment Mordecai had to bite his tongue because no, he could never, was never going to understand. “I have to get out of the Castle. Go back to London for a while.”

“Because of Rosalie?” Flavian guessed, and Mordecai nodded and hoped that Flavian never had to find out how wrong that guess was. Flavian never needed to know that Rosalie was both an innocent flirtation and a convenient excuse to leave.

It was easier than explaining the real reason. There was no way to say that he was leaving because he had to betray them all, because he thought that maybe he was capable of doing what was required of him but not if he had to look everyone in the face every day and lie about it.

If he did this alone, he could sell this to himself as just another adventure, the kind of derring-do every boy dreams about where every law is broken but somehow no real damage occurs. If he could convince himself it was a choice rather than a requirement, perhaps he could make it bearable. He couldn’t do that living at the Castle, not with Rosalie trying not to cry in a corner at the report of dead mermaids, Flavian white-lipped with anger when they heard about another case of smuggled dragon’s blood, and Gabriel growing steadily grimmer as the Wraith somehow escaped yet another time. They were his friends. Perhaps he could betray them if he had to, but he couldn’t do it to their faces.

“It’ll get better,” Flavian offered awkwardly. He opened his mouth as though wanting to add to that and then shut it again. Mordecai waited, unable to explain that no, it really wouldn’t. “Come back and visit,” Flavian said finally. “You’ll be missed. We need you for cricket.”

And maybe there were layers of meaning in that which Mordecai was too caught up in his own lies and fears and feelings to interpret. Perhaps Flavian was trying to say that he was needed for far more than cricket, but Mordecai wouldn’t understand that until much much later.

 ***

“I need to tell you something,” Mordecai said. Flavian’s face took on his most earnest listening expression as he waited for whatever was to come.

And yet, however much Mordecai had practiced alone, when he opened his mouth the words refused to set themselves into any kind of respectable order. How could you look at someone who trusted you and tell them that the Wraith was controlling a seven year old boy – the most powerful spirit traveller he had ever met, but still a seven year old boy – and that you were helping?

If he could, if he did, Mordecai knew that the machinery of government would click smoothly into play. Christopher’s location in this world would be found without delay. The child would be protected. The world would run right again, and the only price would be Mordecai being arrested and everyone he knew hating him forever.

The words stuck in his throat. Surely it wasn’t necessary to bring that about? Not when the boy seemed to enjoy what he was doing and view it all as a great adventure. But Flavian was still waiting for an answer.

“The Circle Line,” Mordecai managed after a moment. “It’s terrible at the moment. You should take the District Line, if you’re visiting.”

To his ears it was a fairly terrible lie and deflection, even if he smiled as he said it. Flavian’s expression though brightened as though lit by an inner sun, as though Mordecai had imparted some secret and wonderful message meant just for him.

“I’ll remember that,” he said fervently. “And I will visit.”

Though Mordecai had hardly intended it as an invitation or hint that he needed company, Flavian did.

 ***

“I’ve done something terrible,” Mordecai said, a year later, when he opened the door to see Flavian there. This, then, was the consequence of encouraging Flavian’s visits, which up until then had usually been cheerful and harmless affairs that involved a lot of talking about cricket. Mordecai might usually be able to lie cheerfully to people’s faces, but he didn’t have to look in the mirror to know that today his haggard look would be enough to give him away. Last night he had sent Christopher into the highly dangerous and guarded Temple of Asheth. He had seen the Arm of Asheth charge in, ready to attack. He had not seen the boy come out again.

Today he was reeling from the idea that he – harmless Mordecai who laughed and flitted between worlds and never got into any trouble that went deeper than his ankles – might be responsible for the death of a child. Today he was not the person he wanted to be, and the consequences for admitting it seemed insubstantial compared to what had already occurred.

Had Flavian questioned him at that point he would have spilled out the truth without hesitation, and felt he deserved whatever he got as a consequence. But Flavian didn’t. Flavian set down his bags, came in, and shut the door. He made tea – hot sweet tea – and made Mordecai choke it down, though Mordecai was almost shaking too badly to hold the cup. He didn’t ask, he only waited, and when Mordecai couldn’t get the words out unprompted he told him that nothing was that bad, that anything done could be undone, that Mordecai was a good man and that he was sure that whatever he had done was justified. Perhaps he was too used to the things that had to be done as part of government work, the things bound in the strictest confidence, to even try asking. Perhaps he simply trusted Mordecai too much to push.

When Flavian kissed him – carefully, gently, as though unsure how else to provide comfort – Mordecai responded with the desperation of a man who at that moment needed to have someone feel he was still worth something, even if that was undeserved.

Maybe that was a bad idea. Probably it was a bad idea. But Mordecai couldn’t bring himself to admit that, not when Flavian kept coming back.

 ***

“The boy is impossible!” Flavian said, with an annoyance Mordecai had rarely seen him express over anything. “I might as well be trying to teach a bag of sand for all the effort he puts into learning. I can make lessons as imaginative as I like and he just sits there as though off in another world.

Mordecai could hardly say that this didn’t sound like the Christopher he knew. Nor could he say that the boy was clearly deeply unhappy – not when he was not meant to have met Christopher at all. He thought deeply for a moment as he set the mugs of tea down, trying to think how best to stay safe while also helping the child he felt responsible for.

Think of Christopher and it was like thinking of a small grubby whirlwind, one that overflowed with enthusiasm for every task he was set. He thought of Christopher eagerly clambering between worlds, earnestly demonstrating his stroke with a piece of driftwood, chattering nine-to-the-dozen about school. It was difficult to recognise the child in Flavian’s description.

Of course it was hard to go from there without thinking of Christopher as he had last seen him, the boy’s skull completely shattered from a massive blow. Mordecai shuddered inwardly. With any luck, Chrestomanci Castle would be alert enough to stop the visits to another world and keep him safe. In the meantime he owed Christopher badly, more than enough to help with this.

“Perhaps he’s more the outdoors type,” he suggested diplomatically. “Get him involved in the village cricket match maybe? Boys love cricket.”

It would mean him giving up cricket he thought, distracted from listening as Flavian seized on that idea and chattered about the best way to approach it, but that was worth it. It would simply mean finding the right excuse.

*** 

“I practically killed him,” Flavian said, more than a little hysteria in his voice. “I _did_ kill him – if he hadn’t had lives to spare! But I could swear – the wood was sodden – I don’t know how I could have been so _stupid!”_

From the moment he had walked through the door it had been clear that it was Flavian’s turn to be in need of tea, and calming, and comfort. Mordecai had done his best with the first two, but found himself struggling with the last. There was no way to confess to Flavian that the death hadn’t been his responsibility at all, because he himself had stood by as Christopher was burned to death only a short time before.

He’d been sickened by it at the time, horrified that yet again he could have allowed this to happen. Now he found himself barely able to touch Flavian, revolted by his own behaviour in letting Flavian blame himself for this.

_I don’t deserve you,_ he thought to himself sadly, but this was not the time or the place for that conversation. Not with Flavian so upset. That was something he would have to deal with later.

*** 

“How _could_ you?” Flavian asked, the hurt and confusion plain in his voice and Mordecai fought back the urge to drop his head into his hands and weep. He didn’t deserve to ask for sympathy; he hadn’t deserved that for a long long time. He couldn’t undo what had been done, he could only try to avoid dragging the innocent with him.

So instead of weeping he smiled and talked, and watched the horror and disgust he’d dreaded for four or five years creep across Flavian’s features. He talked carelessly of how it had all been a great adventure, of the thrill of exploring new worlds, of how he’d thought himself clever every time he managed to lie to their faces. The spells wouldn’t allow him to lie, only to miss out describing things entirely – the child he’d manipulated, the days he’d despaired, the times he would rather have hidden in his flat forever rather than ever face any of them again. There had been good times – mostly thanks to Christopher – and he talked brightly of them without ever mentioning the boy’s name.

Was it his imagination that Flavian was one of the harder of the interrogators? Or was it have been that the feeling of a betrayal that large was enough to make the man sterner than he might ever have otherwise been? When Flavian finally left the room his voice broke for a moment despite himself. He hid it in a sip of water, and went on talking, fighting the urge to vomit.

_You deserve this,_ he reminded himself sternly. Hadn’t he expected it from the very start? Still, it hurt to think that Flavian couldn’t tell simply by glancing at him that he was lying, even after this long – but then, after so long lying to him what had Mordecai expected?

*** 

“I’m sorry,” Mordecai said. It wasn’t until they got back from Eleven that he _could_ say it, that he could allow himself to voice the silent apologies he’d been thinking at Flavian for years now. “For ... I’m sorry. The words would never come.” And even now, now that there was nothing in the world from preventing him talking, it was hard to get the words out. It was difficult to say why, it was hardly as though he could make himself drop further in Flavian’s eyes.

Flavian looked back at him; quiet, thoughtful, slightly pink. “How do I know,” he asked, keeping his voice steady, “that that’s not another lie?”

It was hard to look up and meet that earnest expression. The thing about Flavian, Mordecai thought, heart twisting a little, was that he was always so very earnest about everything. Perhaps he didn’t always succeed in what he tried to do, but you could never doubt his sincerity,

Unlike Mordecai, of course, who had spent the entirety of their relationship twisting, evading and lying.

“You don’t,” he admitted, and now he knew why it had always been so difficult to be honest. When you were at a point where lying could keep a relationship glued together, honesty _hurt_ _._ “But I’m sorry anyway.”

He would have loved to edge that apology with promises; oaths to never lie to him again or insistences that if it had been enough for everyone else it should be enough for Flavian. But it felt too late for promises to be made and believed, too late to demand anything and have it granted.

Flavian considered him soberly for a moment more. Mordecai had seen that expression a thousand times before, although never aimed at him. It was Flavian’s best civil servant expression, reserved solely when Flavian was attempting to judge what had truly occurred in a situation. For a long moment, Mordecai found himself holding his breath.

The hand that came to cover his was warm, plump, slightly sweaty and as welcome as daffodils in spring-time.

“You could have left,” Flavian said simply. “When Christopher let you out, he trusted you but you could have left. And you stayed, when you thought we hated you, and you helped when you didn’t have to.”

Forgiveness came like the sun rising after the blackest of nights. Perhaps it was undeserved, perhaps he had not done enough to earn it, but as Mordecai remembered to start breathing once more he knew that this time there would be no need to leave Chrestomanci Castle again.

 

 

 

 


End file.
